Modeling and Simulation Group Meeting

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First passage statistics in biophysics: Theory and applications

Speaker: Sarah Kostinski, Physics Department, NYU

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 517

Date: Thursday, March 26, 2026, 12:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

The time needed for a random walk to reach a boundary, known as the first passage time, arises in many processes in biophysics. For example, how long does it take a molecular motor to transport cargo along a microtubule? When does a nanoparticle diffusing inside the cytoplasm first reach the cell membrane? I will use the last question to show how analyzing intracellular data via first passage statistics overcomes experimental constraints. Then the inspection paradox will be employed to explain how stochastic resetting can reduce the mean first passage time. I will conclude with closed-form solutions we recently found for the cumulative distribution of first passage times in discrete biased random walks.